lol, Admin your a spoon....you love to stir!!

and then sit back with your popcorn

and butt every now and then to calm things down and then flare things up again!

and?

both are going for the jugular.

It is pretty entertaining if you take a step back.

especially considring noone will change their mind on abdul wahaab najdi.

those who like him will continue to like him. those who loath him will continue to loath him. those unsure will be confused further.

I don't know enough of about Wahab to pass any particular judgement on him but I have gotten the impression from various scholars that he was either

A. A very devout muslim who attempted to reform the faith and purify it by removing a lot of the heretical or just human made innovation from it (a sort of martin luther)

or

B. A self obsorbed whacko and a proto arab-nationalist

Certainly I don't think it's no more fair of us to judge him in light of modern terrorism that it would be of us to judge islam in light of modern terrorism.

The 2/300 year span in between Wahab and modern terrorism certainly endorses the approach of studying him individually of terrorism

i'll go for B, please Bob

"Dave" wrote:

B. A self obsorbed whacko and a proto arab-nationalist

Certainly I don't think it's no more fair of us to judge him in light of modern terrorism that it would be of us to judge islam in light of modern terrorism.

The 2/300 year span in between Wahab and modern terrorism certainly endorses the approach of studying him individually of terrorism

I've seen no evidence whatsoever to suggest that he was an arab nationalist.

Interestingly though modern non-arab wahhabis do seem to want to be arabs. For example you see many black waahbis in Britain wearing Saudi headdresses. Even muslims who become wahhabis feel obliged to change their names to arabic names.

In terms of terrorism and wahabs role I see it like this. He made it easier to attack verbally/physically other regular sunni muslims whereas Said Qutb made it easier to attack the rulers of muslims.

"salaf" wrote:

I've seen no evidence whatsoever to suggest that he was an arab nationalist.

Interestingly though modern non-arab wahhabis do seem to want to be arabs. For example you see many black waahbis in Britain wearing Saudi headdresses. Even muslims who become wahhabis feel obliged to change their names to arabic names.

In terms of terrorism and wahabs role I see it like this. He made it easier to attack verbally/physically other regular sunni muslims whereas Said Qutb made it easier to attack the rulers of muslims.

Eh, I think too much emphasis is placed on koteb - his brother probably did more for islamic terrorism than sayed. Mohammed is certainly more of a major player in the connection between wahabism and terrorism.

I get the feeling the MB were really more like street thugs than the sophistocated terrorists we see today. The modern MB is sly - they want more "democracy" because they know they can get elected.

I have not noticed any connection between wahabism and arab nationalism - i've only heard it. It's impossible to get an honest account of Wahab because everybody has an angle.

I take it by your comments Wahab's influence on bin Laden is bin Laden's irritating habit of excommunicating muslims?

"Dave" wrote:

"salaf" wrote:

I've seen no evidence whatsoever to suggest that he was an arab nationalist.

Interestingly though modern non-arab wahhabis do seem to want to be arabs. For example you see many black waahbis in Britain wearing Saudi headdresses. Even muslims who become wahhabis feel obliged to change their names to arabic names.

In terms of terrorism and wahabs role I see it like this. He made it easier to attack verbally/physically other regular sunni muslims whereas Said Qutb made it easier to attack the rulers of muslims.

Eh, I think too much emphasis is placed on koteb - his brother probably did more for islamic terrorism than sayed. Mohammed is certainly more of a major player in the connection between wahabism and terrorism.

I get the feeling the MB were really more like street thugs than the sophistocated terrorists we see today. The modern MB is sly - they want more "democracy" because they know they can get elected.

I have not noticed any connection between wahabism and arab nationalism - i've only heard it. It's impossible to get an honest account of Wahab because everybody has an angle.

I take it by your comments Wahab's influence on bin Laden is bin Laden's irritating habit of excommunicating muslims?

Hard to say. Zawahiri took what Qutb laid down to a new level and so I don't see how Wahhab's influence would be relevant there even though there may be similarities.

In terms of the muslim brotherhood I think they in many ways started the whole revolutionary mindset within the muslim world. Not all of them were willing to go as far as Zawahiri though. That accounts for the numbers difference. It isn't an issue of small group of educated terrorists/large gang of street thugs.

"salaf" wrote:

Hard to say. Zawahiri took what Qutb laid down to a new level and so I don't see how Wahhab's influence would be relevant there even though there may be similarities.

In terms of the muslim brotherhood I think they in many ways started the whole revolutionary mindset within the muslim world. Not all of them were willing to go as far as Zawahiri though. That accounts for the numbers difference. It isn't an issue of small group of educated terrorists/large gang of street thugs.

Zawahiri actually studied under Mohammed Koteb in Saudi Arabia, from what I understand of Mohammed he was a Wahabi. So far as I can determine that is the beginning point of the relationship between terrorism and wahabism.

I personally thought the Muslim Brotherhood was overrated - I consider them the birth of young reactionary groups in Egypt, but it's always seemed to me a bit of a stretch to islamic terrorism. Most international terrorist groups during the 70s were arab socialists - like the PLO. I see a far greater connection between the MB and them than I do between the MB and Al Qaeda. I think a lot of western scholars see the political islamism in the MB and jump to conclusions. The more appropriate beginning point for islamic fundamentalism really should be with Afghanistan when the US used it against the "godless Soviets."

You certainly have a point about this not being an issue of the educated terrorist leading the thugs, but I think if you compare the central group Koteb was drawing on - lower class imperial subject arabs with the group Zawahiri prays on, middle class educated arabs, it endorses the thought Zawahiri isn't working within the mindset Mohammed Koteb was teaching - it's not just more extreme, it's fundamentally different, different audience and (in my opinion) different message.

"Dave" wrote:

Zawahiri actually studied under Mohammed Koteb in Saudi Arabia, from what I understand of Mohammed he was a Wahabi. So far as I can determine that is the beginning point of the relationship between terrorism and wahabism.

Oh yeah I forgot about that. Many of the Ikhwan fled to saudi to avoid a general clamp down by the government. You're probably right on this point.

"Dave" wrote:

I personally thought the Muslim Brotherhood was overrated - I consider them the birth of young reactionary groups in Egypt, but it's always seemed to me a bit of a stretch to islamic terrorism.

Remember the muslim brotherhood was founded long before Qutb joined and introduced his Takfiri ideas. These ideas hadn't always existed. Maybe a distinction should be made between the muslim brotherhood and Syed Qutb's ideas. For example in Britain we have this individual Azzam Tamimi who is a member of Hamas which is the Palestinian branch of the muslim brotherhood. However he rejects Qutb as being too extreme.

True, Bahnah didn't intend it to go political, from what I understand it was actually an attempt to bring Islam into "the modern world" - that's not exactly an endorsement for the kind of islamism we see today which appears to reject the modern world. Especially in this early period I don't think you can ignore the important place it played in Arab (specifically Egyptian) nationalism. Bahnah was a teacher, and drew upon traditional western liberal thinkers. That sounds to me more in line with the arab socialist nationalism of the 70s than islamism. I don't see this early MB as any starting point for islamic terrorism we have today.

It was really Nasser that made them a fringe group. Like I said Koteb really wasn't as big as people make him out to be, his brother was the one I would say more closely relates to modern islamism. Expecially after his brother was executed and he lashed out against "westernized" arab leaders id est Sadat. But Nasser should be the line of demarkation, his pointless lashing out at the organization made them reactionary (violently reactionary) and that led to their attempts at revolution.

It just seems to me that given the long history of the organization and it's relatively brief flirtation with modern islamism - which ultimately it just exported to Saudi Arabia, it's not a very good starting position. Consider the fact that after Koteb the organization lost it's thuggish militarism.

He might have been a spark - but the fire started with Afghanistan.

Call me crazy but wasn't Muhammad's mother from the Wahab family?

yes